To achieve a successful implementation of the enterprise integration strategy, the government identified the following key success factors that needed to be dealt with vigilantly:

• Promotion of the integration strategy to UAE federal and local government entities through the adoption of a well-defined communication plan and awareness campaigns.
• Adoption of the new smart ID card by government entities/citizens/residents by requiring the presentation of an ID card when requesting services.
• Adoption of an ID number as part of person profile by data owners would support and enable integration between the identity-issuing authority and the government entities.
• Provide comprehensive services to UAE federal and local government entities.
• Ensure secure access to the national population register to promote confidence and adhere to data privacy and confidentiality best practices.
• Robust integration on-boarding approach and dedicated on-boarding team to help and support government entities in integrating with the national identity management system.

A national identity management program is characterized by the scope of the identity profile of an individual. One of the key factors to establish a successful identity management infrastructure is the level of integration between the different government entities (e.g., data owners) and the entity responsible for managing identities (e.g., Identity Authority).
In the case of the UAE, the early work of integration was handled at a system level where the primary focus was on identifying what data is needed for creating the identity profile. The integration focus at the time primarily dealt with how to collect information from a single system (i.e., the Ministry of Interior). The integration was more of a point-to-point integration pattern between the Interior and the Identity Authority.
Over the past years and prior to setting up the new integration strategy in the UAE, the number of systems that needed to be connected with (i.e., data owners), has grown exponentially, and thereby adding more point-to-point integration interface requirements. This has led to complex integration implementations. On the other hand, the maintenance of such interfaces presented the identity authority with additional costs, limited flexibility in addressing new requirements and related risks.